From the Ancient History. Part I

Smileys as a type of a secret code appeared after hieroglyphs in the ancient China. The first smiley sources dating the 16. Century before Christ look out of date (but it’s understandable) but they safely performed their function. The Sun Tszyan piedmont monastery has left us evidences in the form of petroglyphic smileys, handwritten smileys (on bamboo paper, and some parts of them survived only in very distorted form), smileys on shoes of ancient husbandmen horses (there were discussions in the Academy of Sciences revolved around these pictures engraved with interesting fineness, these discussions resulted in recognition of the Sun Tszyan smiths as the most original caste of that time, though all the Chinese craftsmen were surprisingly competent), on hammocks (they are so shabby now, that one can hardly find some traces of former smileys), on the fan of Lin Gun (was found in 1895, in the Guandalinman region, near to her piss-pot, which had no smileys on it), and finally (the most important exhibit, that allows us to date smileys ancient time) – on the bark «buksort», that was destroyed by medieval sect fanatics because of phallic gnarls in the middle part of the trunk. The bark of even this tree was used by monks of the above mentioned monastery to make lists of province inhabitants by order of the then local ruler.

Smileys on bark are now the most valuable museum exhibit (excursions can de ordered in Peking, it takes 16 hours to reach this place by helicopter, or in Shanghai, boat trip on river Jantszi takes 2 days), all exhibits are recorded by UNESСO in 1976 and with computer technologies development are entered in the US Congress electronic library («Chinese ancient smileys. Recovery, Snapshots, Researches», ISBN 5-900617-01-7).

The main specification of these smileys is the fact that they are very close to the diacritic Sun Tszyan hieroglyphs of that time. In the connection of diacritic signs with the first smileys system took interest in 1920s-1960s the Thai researcher Tianuk Srumlen, who fell 1976 victim of the Kampuchean holocaust. He was the first one to notice a diametrical contrast between the ancient diacritic and the modern smileywriting. Although he was the first and according to some points of view the only one smileyresearcher in the South-Eastern Asia, as a result of the 10 years of his hard work his wonderful book saw the light, the book, that revealed a secret of ancient signs. Now you can buy the book in the publishing house “Palea”, but though the publication got through several translations and the research lost its former breadth, all the photographs are still in it and let us judge the depth of the research interpretations.

We won’t particularize ancient Chinese smileys and refer our reader to the mentioned publishing house. We’ll only notice that a European can only hardly define a Chinese smiley from a Chinese hieroglyph, that’s why only inveterate sinologists dare to do it.

Ancient Rome. Mithraism hasn’t ended yet, death-fires for the first Christians are still burning, Latin language isn't declared the world cultural asset, but the Italic smileysm is already developing. The eloquent Cicero commits in his blistering Philippics the fact that the high art of eloquence is damaged by using in everyday correspondence stupid unnecessary smileys which have no sense. Especially Greek slaves from the best senator houses sin it. A custom to combine normal language and smileys 50 to 50 came from Egypt in the 2. Century. The Roman secret service perceived it as a conspiracy, and 400 Young philosophers from Alexandria were carved to pieces. (195, «Egyptian Chronicle», according to Euripides).

In the Middle Ages a boom of smileys usage can be noticed at Malta, Spain and in independent cities in Germany. Echo of this process found their way also to Poland and than to Russia. Remember the letters of Ivan the Terrible to the knyaz Kurbsky (the third letter, 54th line, the 3rd word – sign). In Novgorod smiley usage was not documented, but the archeologists don’t lose their hope to find any evidences, because the birchbark manuscripts were found not so long ago – in the 40s – and this finding was world-shaking.

The development of smiley systems as closed significant conceptual innovations went by leaps and bounds with navigation development and discovering of new lands. At the beginning of 18. Century only in England were to find pirate smileys, parliamentarian smileys, trading smileys, philosophical smileys (used even by Isaac Newton!). The so-called "smileys of esquire Bolding" (1768), Scottish and Gaelic branches of the tartans (that are still used in rural libraries of mountain regions in Great Britain).

The French Revolution of the end of the 18. Century ignored everything connected with the king including his elegant distingue smileys of the Louis the Fifteenth’ epoch. The Convention has prohibited all types of smileys upon penalty of death, and after some decades, after the Napoleon wars there was nothing left from the French samples. France like Cameroon (where nobody has any idea of smileys even now) is in general a good example of a tornading antismileystic politics, that has destroyed all rudiments (and in case of France also excesses) of smileystics.

Ethiopia plays a special role in the history of smileys. It is the only one country in Africa that has never been a colonial state. New theories of the “New Chronology” that at the begin there was only one religion are surprisingly proved by the comparative analysis of ancient manuscripts of Christians, Jews, Moslems – the same smileys can be found there (Amharic history of the 8.-18. Centuries, Addis-Ababa, 1991).

But it should be also mentioned that the conquest of new lands and the following cultural expansion of tributary races rather destroyed original smileys sprouts than made them a part of the race-conqueror smiley system. In such a way many types of smiley systems were lost (irretrievably according to the majority of researchers): smileys of New Zealand indigenous - Maori, smileys of indigenous Australians, smileys from Sri-Lanka, Malagacy ... the full martyrology would take a lot of place and time.

Many persons, even distinguished, treat harmless smileys as not a slang derivations to help stylists to express their emotions, but as a relicts of old cipher code types even now. Such codes were used by secret communities, conspirators or any other secret organizations. State security of Russia could not afford to stand back from this information flow and monitors the development of smileys. The unit dealing with it is named SORM (Smiley – Operation, Retrace, Monitoring).